Political speak -
I'd like to thank the many constituents who took the time this past week to email me to let me know what they thought of the province's latest budget.
Judging from the emails, the budget has hit a nerve. Writer after writer poured out their outrage, as Nova Scotians woke up to the uncomfortable fact that, quite plainly, we were lied to.
During the election, whenever Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil challenged Darrell Dexter on his claim that the NDP wouldn't have to raise taxes to balance the budget, the NDP leader insisted he would not raise taxes.
But this week, Darrell Dexter did it. In fact, the NDP trumpeted they'd "restored" the HST to 15 per cent, as if that were something to be proud of, as if they'd done us all a favour.
The fact is: consumption taxes hurt business. I've heard from small business people who thought their companies were finally pulling out of the recession - only to be hit by this HST hike. They know what happens when people have to pay consumption taxes - they buy less. The NDP have tried to claim they're helping small business out by lowering the small business tax by half of one per cent - as if that will make up for the HST hit - but that doesn't even come into effect until January of next year.
And consumption taxes hurt low income earners the hardest. Too make things worse, the NDP apparently thinks a family living on $35,000 per year doesn't deserve tax relief. So these families get whacked by the HST hike but - unlike the really poor and the rich - they don't get any tax rebates.
Instead, the NDP has given anyone making $83,000 to $219,000 (which includes those NDP members in the cabinet) a tax CUT by eliminating the 10 per cent surtax.
When the Liberal caucus pointed this out to Finance Minister Graham Steele, he scoffed, said we had our facts wrong. (He said that last fall, too, when we pointed out that he had prepaid the universities $341 million a year early, thereby inflating the deficit to make the Tories look bad. We were right.) And last Thursday, it was apparent we were right again - when tax lawyers from a major Halifax law firm confirmed our diagnosis.
The simple fact is that on July 1, Nova Scotians will pay the highest HST in the country. That's not the way to "make life more affordable," as the NDP election brochure claimed.
If anything, it's a bitter deal for today's families.
